This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index.
Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book
(without typos) from the publisher. 1915. Not illustrated. Excerpt:
... CHAPTER XXXVI SCIENCE AND THE UNKNOWN IT is a remarkable fact
that although the first efforts of the founders of the Royal
Society for the Promotion of Natural Knowledge, two hundred and
fifty years ago, in this country, and of other such associations on
the Continent, had the immediate effect of destroying a large
amount of that fantastic superstition and credulity which had until
then prevailed in all classes of society, and although that period
marks the transition from the astounding and terrible nightmares of
the Middle Ages to a happier condition when witchcraft, sorcery,
and baseless imaginings concerning natural things gave place to
knowledge founded on careful observation and experiment--yet the
ugly baleful relic of savagery died hard, even in the most
civilized communities. In spite of all the light that has been shed
upon obscure processes, and all the triumphs of the knowledge of
"the order of Nature," there remains to this day in this country a
surprising amount of ignorance, accompanied by blind unreasoning
devotion to traditional beliefs in magic, and a love of the
preposterous fancies of a barbarous past, simply because they are
preposterous "There is something in it," is a favourite phrase, and
the words put by Shakespear into the mouth of the demented Hamlet,
who thinks he has seen and conversed with a ghost, "There are more
things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your
philosophy," are gravely quoted as though they were applicable to
the Horatios of to-day. We have no reason to suppose that there are
more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our
philosophy. Those who inappropriately quote this saying as though
it were proverbial wisdom are usually persons of very small
knowledge, and mistake their own limitati...